"Yes."
"Okay, you keep books for the first week or so. After you learn to take a report and get to know the streets a little bit, I'll let you drive. All new policemen love to drive."
"Anything. Anything is okay with me."
"Guess I'm ready, Gus. Let's go downstairs," said Kilvinsky, and they walked side by side through the double doors and down the turning stairway of old University station.
"See those pictures, partner?" said Kilvinsky pointing to the glass-covered portraits of University policemen who had been killed on duty. "These guys aren't heroes. Those guys just screwed up and they're dead. Pretty soon you'll get comfortable and relaxed out there, just like the rest of us. But don't get too comfortable. Remember the guys in the pictures."
"I don't feel like I'll ever get comfortable," Gus said.
"You will, partner. You will," said Kilvinsky. "Let's find our black and white and go to work."
The inadequate parking lot was teeming with blue uniforms as the night watch relieved the day watch at 3:45 P.M. The sun was still very hot and ties could remain off until later in the evening. Gus wondered at the heavy long-sleeved blue uniforms. His arms were sweating and the wool was harsh.
"I'm not used to wearing such heavy clothes in the heat," he smiled to Kilvinsky, as he wiped his forehead with a handkerchief.
"You'll get used to it," said Kilvinsky, sitting carefully on the sun-heated vinyl seat and releasing the seat lock to slide back and make room for his long legs.
Gus placed the new hot sheet in the holder and wrote 3-A-99 on the notebook pad so that he would not forget who they were. That seemed odd, he thought. He was now 3-A-99. He felt his heart race and he knew he was more excited than he should be. He hoped it was just that--excitement. There was nothing yet to fear.
"The passenger officer handles the radio, Gus."
"Okay."
"You won't hear our calls at first. That radio will just be an incoherent mess of conversation for a while. In a week or so you'll start to hear our calls."
"Okay."
"Ready for a night of romance, intrigue and adventure on the streets of the asphalt jungle?" asked Kilvinsky dramatically.
"Sure," Gus smiled.
"Okay, kid," Kilvinsky laughed. "You a little thrilled?"
"Yes."
"Good. That's the way you should be."
As Kilvinsky drove from the station parking lot he turned west on Jefferson and Gus flipped down the visor and squinted into the sun. The radio car smelled faintly of vomit.
"Want a tour of the division?" asked Kilvinsky.
"Sure."
"Almost all the citizens here are Negroes. Some whites. Some Mexicans. Mostly Negroes. Lots of crime when you have lots of Negroes. We work Ninety-nine. Our area is _all__ black. Close to Newton. Ours are eastside Negroes. When they got some money they move west of Figueroa and Vermont and maybe west of Western. Then they call themselves westside Negroes and expect to be treated differently. I treat everyone the same, white or black. I'm civil to all people, courteous to none. I think courtesy implies servility. Policemen don't have to be servile or apologize to anyone for doing their job. This is a philosophy lesson I throw in free to every rookie I break in. Old-timers like me love to hear themselves talk. You'll get used to radio car philosophers."
"How much time do you have on the Department?" asked Gus, looking at the three service stripes on Kilvinsky's sleeve which meant at least fifteen years. But he had a youthful face if it weren't for the silver hair and the glasses. Gus guessed he was in good condition. He had a powerful-looking body.
"Twenty years this December," said Kilvinsky.
"You retiring?"
"Haven't decided."
They rode silently for several minutes and Gus looked at the city and realized he knew nothing about Negroes. He enjoyed the names on the churches. On a corner he saw a one-story, whitewashed frame building with a handmade sign which said, "Lion of Judah and Kingdom of Christ Church," and on the same block was the "Sacred Defender Baptist Church" and in a moment he saw the "Hearty Welcome Missionary Baptist Church" and on and on he read the signs on the scores of churches and hoped he could remember them to tell Vickie when he got home tonight. He thought the churches were wonderful.
"Sure is hot," said Gus, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.
"You don't have to wear your lid in the car, you know," said Kilvinsky. "Only when you get out."
"Oh," said Gus, taking off the hat quickly. "I forgot I had it on."
Kilvinsky smiled and hummed softly as he patrolled the streets, letting Gus sightsee and Gus watched how slowly he drove and how deliberately. He would remember that. Kilvinsky patrolled at fifteen miles an hour.
"Guess I'll get used to the heavy uniform," said Gus, pulling the sleeve from his sticky arms.
"Chief Parker doesn't go for short sleeves," said Kilvinsky.
"Why not?"
"Doesn't like hairy arms and tattoos. Long sleeves are more dignified."
"He spoke to our graduating class," said Gus, remembering the eloquence of the chief and the perfect English which had deeply impressed Vickie who sat proudly in the audience that day.
"He's one of a vanishing kind," said Kilvinsky.
"I've heard he's strict."
"He's a Calvinist. Know what that is?"
"A puritan?"
"He professes to be Roman Catholic, but I say he's a Calvinist. He won't compromise on matters of principle. He's despised by lots of people."
"He is?" said Gus, reading the signs on the store windows.
"He knows evil when he sees it. He recognizes the weakness of people. He has a passion for order and the rule of law. He can be relentless," said Kilvinsky.
"You sound as if you kind of admire him."
"I love him. When he's gone, nothing will be the same."
What a strange man Kilvinsky is, Gus thought. He talked absently and if it weren't for the boyish grin, Gus would have been uncomfortable with him. Then Gus watched a young Negro strutting across Jefferson Boulevard and he studied the swaying, limber shoulder movement, bent-elbowed free swinging arms, and the rubber-kneed big stepping bounce and as Kilvinsky remarked, "He's walkin' smart," Gus realized how profoundly ignorant he was about Negroes and he was anxious to learn about them, and about all people. If he could just learn and grow he would know something about people after a few years in this job. He thought of the squirming muscle in the long brown arms of the young man who was now blocks behind him. He wondered how he would fare if the two of them were face to face in a police-suspect confrontation when he had no partner and he could not use his sidearm and the young Negro was not impressed with his glittering golden shield and suit of blue. He cursed himself again for the insidious fear and he vowed he would master it but he always made this vow and still the fear came or rather the promise of fear, the nervous growling stomach, the clammy hands, the leathery mouth, but enough, enough to make him suspect that when the time came he would not behave like a policeman.
What if a man the size of Kilvinsky resisted arrest? Gus thought. How could I possibly handle him? There were things he wanted to ask, but was ashamed to ask Kilvinsky. Things he might ask a smaller man, after he got to know him, if he ever did get to really know him. He had never had many friends and at this moment he doubted that he could find any among these uniformed men who made him feel like a small boy. Maybe it had all been a mistake, he thought. Maybe he could never be one of them. They seemed so forceful and confident. They had seen things. But maybe it was just bravado. Maybe it was that.
But what would happen if someone's life, maybe Kilvinsky's life, depended on his conquest of fear which he had never been able to conquer? Those four years of marriage while he worked in a bank had not prepared him to cope with that. And why hadn't he the courage to talk to Vickie about things like this, and then he thought of the times he had lain beside her in the darkness, particularly after lovemaking, and he had thought of these things an
d prayed to have the courage to talk to Vickie about it, but he hadn't, and no one knew that _he__ knew that he was a coward. But what would it ever have mattered that he was a coward if he had stayed in the bank where he belonged? Why could he do well in wrestling and physical training, but turn sick and impotent when the other man was not playing a game? Once in P. T. when he was wrestling with Walmsley he had applied the wristlock too firmly as Officer Randolph had shown them. Walmsley became angry and when Gus saw his eyes, the fear came, his strength deserted him and Walmsley easily took him down. He did it viciously and Gus did not resist even though he knew he was stronger and twice as agile as Walmsley. But that was all part of being a coward, that inability to control your body. Is the hate the thing I fear? Is that it? A face full of hate?
"Come on granny, let the clutch out," Kilvinsky said as a female driver in front of them crept toward the signal causing them to stop instead of making the yellow light.
"One-seven-three west Fifty-fourth Street," said Kilvinsky, tapping on the writing pad between them.
"What?" asked Gus.
"We got a call. One-seven-three west Fifty-fourth Street. Write it down."
"Oh. Sorry, I can't make any sense out of the radio yet."
"Roger the call," said Kilvinsky.
"Three-A-Ninety-nine, roger," said Gus into the hand mike.
"You'll start picking our calls out of all that chatter pretty soon," said Kilvinsky. "Takes a while. You'll get it."
"What kind of call was it?"
"Unknown trouble call. That means the person who called isn't sure what the problem is, or it means he wasn't coherent or the operator couldn't understand him, or it could mean anything. I don't like those calls. You don't know what the hell you have until you get there."
Gus nervously looked at the storefronts. He saw two Negroes with high shiny pompadours and colorful one-piece jump suits park a red Cadillac convertible in front of a window which said, "Big Red's Process Parlor," and below it in yellow letters Gus read, "Process, do-it-yourself process, Quo Vadis, and other styles."
"What do you call the hairdos on those two men?" asked Gus.
"Those two pimps? That style is just called a process, some call it a marcel. Old-time policemen might refer to it as gassed hair, but for police reports most of us just use the word 'process.' Costs them a lot of money to keep a nice process like that, but then, pimps have lots of money. And a process is as important to them as a Cadillac. No self-respecting pimp would be caught without both of them."
Gus wished the sun would drop, then it might cool off. He loved summer nights when the days were hot and paper-dry like this one. He noticed the crescent and star over the white two-story stucco building on the corner. Two men in close-cropped hair and black suits with maroon neckties stood in front of the wide doors with their hands behind their backs and glared at the police car as they continued south.
"That a church?" asked Gus to Kilvinsky, who never looked toward the building or the men.
"That's the Muslim temple. Do you know about Muslims?"
"I've read a little in the papers, that's all."
"They're a fanatical sect that's sprung up recently all over the country. A lot of them are ex-cons. They're all cop haters."
"They look so clean-cut," said Gus, glancing over his shoulder at the two men whose faces were turned in the direction of the police car.
"They're just part of what's happening in the country," said Kilvinsky. "Nobody knows what's happening yet, except a few people like the chief. It may take ten years to figure it all out."
"What _is__ happening?" asked Gus.
"It's a long story," Kilvinsky said. "And I'm not sure myself. And besides, here's the pad."
Gus turned and saw the one-seven-three over the mailbox of the green stucco house with a trash-littered front yard.
Gus almost didn't see the trembling old Negro in khaki work clothes huddled on an ancient wicker chair on the dilapidated porch of the house.
"Glad yo'all could come officahs," he said, standing, quivering, with sporadic looks toward the door standing ajar.
"What's the problem?" asked Kilvinsky, climbing the three stairs to the porch, his cap placed precisely straight on the silver mane.
"Ah jist came home and ah saw a man in the house. Ah don' know him. He jist was sittin' there starin' at me and ah got scairt and run out heah and ovah nex' do' and ah use mah neighbah's phone and while I was waitin' ah look back inside an' theah he sits jist rockin', an' Lord, ah think he's a crazy man. He don' say nothin' jist sits an' rocks."
Gus reached involuntarily for the baton and fingered the grooved handle, waiting for Kilvinsky to decide their first move and he was embarrassed by his relief when he understood, when Kilvinsky winked and said, "Wait here, partner, in case he tries to go out the back door. There's a fence back there so he'd have to come back through the front."
Gus waited with the old man and in a few minutes he heard Kilvinsky shout, "Alright you son of a bitch, get out of here and don't come back!" And he heard the back door slam. Then Kilvinsky opened the screen and said, "Okay, Mister, come on in. He's gone."
Gus followed the gnarled old man, who removed the crumpled hat when he crossed the threshold.
"He sho' is gone, officahs," said the old man, but the trembling had not stopped.
"I told him not to come back," said Kilvinsky. "I don't think you'll be seeing him again around this neighborhood."
"God bless yo'all," said the old man, shuffling toward the back door and locking it.
"How long's it been since you had a drink?" asked Kilvinsky.
"Oh, couple days now," said the old man, smiling a black-toothed smile. "Check's due in the mail any day now."
"Well, just fix yourself a cup of tea and try to get some sleep. You'll feel lots better tomorrow."
"Ah thanks yo'all," said the old man as they walked down the cracked concrete sidewalk to the car. Kilvinsky didn't say anything as he drove off and Gus said finally, "Those d. t.'s must be hell, huh?"
"Must be hell," Kilvinsky nodded.
"We got a coffee spot down the street," said Kilvinsky. "It's so bad you could pour it in your battery when she dies, but it's free and so are the doughnuts."
"Sounds good to me," said Gus.
Kilvinsky parked in the littered coffee shop parking lot and Gus went inside to get the coffee. He left his cap in the car and felt like a veteran, hatless, striding into the coffee shop where he watched a wizened, alcoholic-looking man who was listlessly pouring coffee for three Negro counter customers.
"Coffee?" he said to Gus, coming toward him with two paper cups in his hand.
"Please."
"Cream?"
"Only in one," said Gus, as the counterman drew the coffee from the urns and placed the cups on the counter as Gus self-consciously tried to decide the most diplomatic way to order doughnuts which were free. You didn't wish to be presumptuous even though you wanted a doughnut. It would be so much simpler if they just paid for the coffee and doughnuts, he thought, but then that would counter the tradition and if you did something like that the word might be passed that you were a troublemaker. The man solved his dilemma by saying, "Doughnuts?"
"Please," said Gus, relieved.
"Chocolate or plain? I'm out of glazed."
"Two plain," said Gus, realizing that Kilvinsky had not stated his preference.
"Tops for the cups?"
"No, I can manage," said Gus and a moment later discovered that this chain of coffee shops made the hottest coffee in Los Angeles.
"It's sure hot," he smiled weakly, in case Kilvinsky had seen him spill coffee on himself. His forehead perspired from the sudden flash of pain.
"Wait till you're on the morning watch," said Kilvinsky. "Some chilly winter night about 1:00 A.M. this coffee will light a fire in you and see you through the night."
The sun was dropping on the horizon but it was still hot and Gus thought a Coke would have been better than a cup of coffee but h
e had already noticed that policemen were coffee drinkers and he guessed he may as well get used to it because he was going to be one of them, come what may.
Gus sipped the steaming coffee a full three minutes after it sat on the roof of the police car and found that he still could not stand the temperature; he waited and watched Kilvinsky out of the corner of his eye and saw him taking great gulps as he smoked a cigarette and adjusted the radio until it was barely audible, still much too low for Gus, but then, Gus knew he could not pick their calls out of that chaotic garble of voices anyway, so if Kilvinsky could hear it, it was enough.
Gus saw a stooped ragpicker in filthy denim trousers and a torn, grimy, checkered shirt several sizes too large, and a GI helmet liner with a hole on the side through which a snarled handful of the ragpicker's gray hair protruded. He pushed a shopping cart stolidly down the sidewalk, ignoring six or seven Negro children who taunted him, and until he was very close Gus could not guess what his race was but guessed he was white because of the long gray hair. Then he saw that he was indeed a white man, but covered with crusty layers of filth. The ragpicker stopped near crevices and crannies between and behind the rows of one-story business buildings. He probed in trash cans and behind clumps of weeds in vacant lots until he discovered his prizes and the shopping cart was already filled with empty bottles which the children grabbed at. They shrieked in delight when the ragpicker made ineffectual swipes at their darting hands with his hairy paws too broad and massive for the emaciated body.
"Maybe he was wearing that helmet on some Pacific island when it got that hole blown in it," said Gus.
"It'd be nice to think so," said Kilvinsky. "Adds a little glamour to the old ragpicker. You should keep an eye on those guys, though. They steal plenty. We watched one pushing his little cart along Vermont on Christmas Eve clouting presents out of cars that were parked at the curb. Had a pile of bottles and other trash on top and a cartload of stolen Christmas presents beneath."
Kilvinsky started the car and resumed his slow patrol and Gus felt much more at ease after the coffee and doughnut which domesticized the strange feeling he had here in the city. He was so provincial, he thought, even though he grew up in Azusa, and made frequent trips to Los Angeles.
the New Centurions (1971) Page 7
